Also,
still waiting for The O to launch a column covering the local Kayak and
Canoeing scene. We are woefully underrepresented in the daily
newspaper, and you ignore us at your peril. We have people in place in
Metro and City Council, incognito of course, and when the time is right,
we will make our move. The cyclists will bow at our feet . . .

It's amazing to us that the county could cancel the sale and not give a reason. Here are the politicians and bureaucrats, slinging $20 million around, and when they suddenly pull the plug on a major deal that was two days away from going down, they can just give the media and the public the brushoff? Ladies and gentlemen of county government, what the heck is going on?

The teroizm task force is doing training at Elmo all week long . I
was given the 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm last night . They have one of our
buses and one rail car at Elmo . Very high security area . I was patted
down before I was allowed to enter the area . 25 police officers ,6
observers . One man was from a federal agency overseeing the whole
shebang ! Don't know who he was , no one knew his name . No filming
allowed .They are bringing in police from every agency to work on this
.30 volunteers that act out each scenario . Police have plastic guns
that shoot blanks . most scenarios involve 1 gunman with automatic
weoppon and hostages . Each time a train came into the yard the train
opp would be escorted out of the area .

Since Trimet has failed so miserably in its mission, I do support the notion of ending the monopoly of Trimet as the sole transportation supplier. It's time to open up the market to other people and ideas that can get the job done more efficiently than the poster child of inefficiency TRIMET.

By Tony Colton and Hector Cordon

Beginning
September 1, the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District
(TriMet) implemented fare increases and cuts in services in order to
overcome a $12 million budget shortfall.

TriMet is Portland,
Oregon’s regional public transit agency, transporting more than 350,000
riders daily—more than any other US transit system its size. Operating
buses and light-rail, TriMet serves the Portland metropolitan area, with
a population of more than 2.6 million people, nearly 70 percent of
Oregon’s total population.

I have some of the greatest doctors, which is why I absolutely refuse to switch to Kaiser and its second rate health care system. (not everybody agrees with me on that but after they almost killed my first wife I have never wanted anything to do with them again)